Abstract
Sport officials (i.e., referees, umpires, and judges) face numerous task demands, including making quick and accurate decisions, understanding competition rules, managing conflicts, protecting athletes’ safety, and ensuring fairness. Consequently, officials are essential for organized sports to exist. Nevertheless, research from outside of Canada demonstrates that officials are frequently the recipients of verbal and physical abuse. The purpose of this study was to explore the frequency with which individual sport officials experience abuse in Canada. Participants (N = 694; 617 male; mean age = 46.7 years; mean experience = 15.9 years) representing 14 sports and 10 provinces/territories responded to an online survey assessing abuse received from coaches, athletes, and spectators. 92.9% of officials had been abused at some point during their careers, including 24.9% who were physically abused. Coaches were the most likely source of verbal abuse—experienced by 83.3% of respondents—compared to spectators (82.0%) and athletes (74.4%). Officials reported more encounters of physical abuse from athletes (15.4%), compared to coaches (11.0%) and spectators (8.9%). In their last scheduled competition, 29.3% of participants reported verbal abuse from spectators, 22.9% from athletes, and 19.3% from coaches. The frequency of reported abuse has serious implications for (a) youth officials, (b) workplace safety, (c) officials’ mental health, and (d) officiating retention, which will be discussed herein.
